


The Boov Mounds

by norah



Category: The True Meaning of Smekday - Adam Rex
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 17:14:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norah/pseuds/norah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It was my best work!" J.Lo said. "There were technically drawings even!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boov Mounds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jadelennox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadelennox/gifts).



> Thanks so very much to thefourthvine for her excellent beta work on this, and for encouraging my first fan art efforts.

> Frank Gonzales  
> Ms. McDarrell's 5th period U.S. History
> 
> ##### The Boov Mounds
> 
> The Boov Mounds are hills that are left over from the Boov invasion.
> 
> When the Boov first came to Earthland, humanskind were not very welcoming, so Captain Smek authorized the use of the shrink ray guns. Forto shrink beings or items, a shrink ray is operating much liketo a telecloner, only with the Modifiable Transistor calibrated to a 1:10,000 ratio. The ShrinkoMatic 25000, the recentest model made before the Glorious First Smekday, had a 1:25,000 ratio due to improvements in the silicate gel medium used forto refract the internal Frantious Loop equation. Everybody knows that if the Frantious Loop canto be expended for refractions, possible capacity of the Modifiable Transistor theoretically is the infinite!
> 
> When the Boov leave, they relarged the things, of course. The re-largement process is highly energy-consuming. The Boov needed forto access established infrastructure in order to provide sufficient particle wave emulsions forto relarge everything. But the established infrastructure mostly had been shrunken. The HighBoov say all available particle wave generators are Needed Elsewhere, forto continue the Grand Galactic Migration. But the Boov had signed the Landry Covenant saying they would relarge the things and people. What to do? The Boov are in big trouble.
> 
> Until a young Boov boy named J.Lo isto realizing how to retrofit the telecloner forto provide the waves of particles for relarging! Superstar engineering genius! All Boov forgive J.Lo for his hilarious accident with the Takers now he is saving the day.
> 
> And that is what made the Boov Mounds.

 

> > From: MsMcDarrell@landryhigh.k12.dc.us  
> To: g_gonzales_tucci@gurgle.com
>> 
>> Dear Ms. Tucci,
>> 
>> I am attaching the latest essay Frank has submitted to me for your review. While I cannot find the text he has copied, I think you will agree with me that this essay is clearly not Frank's work. Here at Landry, we take plagiarism very seriously, and normally this kind of infraction would result in disciplinary and academic consequences.
>> 
>> However, Frank is usually a good student and a careful writer, so I will give him the opportunity to re-do the essay, which should be two to three pages explaining the origin and significance of the Boov Mounds we visited on last week's field trip. If I receive an acceptable essay by next Friday, I will use that to determine his grade on this assignment.
>> 
>> Otherwise, I am afraid that I will have to give Frank a failing grade on this, which may affect his final grade in the class. This is also the only warning he will receive about plagiarism; if I find that he has copied others' work again – and I will notice – an official note will be placed in his academic record.
>> 
>> I look forward to reading Frank's revised essay.
>> 
>> Best,  
> Ms. Melanie McDarrell  
> History Department Chair  
> Daniel Landry High School  
> 

 

"Frank, I need to talk to you."

Frank sighed. "What now, Mom? I'm busy!"

"Now, Frank!"

Mom had her stern voice on, and that was never good news. He put the skate he'd been sharpening on the bench and slunk in from the garage. Mom was in the living room on the couch, scowling. J.Lo was there too, slumped dejectedly on one of the floor cushions and not meeting Frank's eyes.

Uh-oh.

But Mom was talking to J.Lo. "We talked about this! You remember what happened with Lucita's science fair project that you "helped" with when she was in fifth grade!"

J.Lo slumped further. Frank's heart sank – Mom must have found out about the essay.

"We were paying off the damages to the school auditorium for ages after that!"

"Essays can not to explore, though," J.Lo said. Frank inched toward the door.

"That is _not_ the point!" Mom said. "And get back here, Frank José Gonzales, or so help me you will be grounded for _life_."

How did she even _do_ that? She hadn't been looking at him at all! Frank sighed and dropped down on the floor cushion near J.Lo.

Unfortunately, her attention was all on him now.

"Did you really think you could get away with this, young man?"

"I did some of it! J.Lo just helped." Frank knew it was a lost cause, but he gave it a try.

"Some of it." Mom's voice was dry. "Mmmhmm."

"J.Lo knows more about the Boov Mounds than I do, Mom, he's a _Boov_!"

"Not the point," Mom said again. "I expect you to do your own work, Frank. And if you don't know enough about something to do the work, I expect you to study until you figure it out."

"But I already know about the Boov Mounds, Mom."

"Then why was J.Lo writing your essay?"

"Because they're _boring_. We went when I was in the third grade and they were boring then too." Frank crossed his arms.

J.Lo, the poomp, had no idea when to keep his mouth shut. "Frank took me to the Postals Museum last week. And promised me three cans of Minty Ocean CoolGel shaving cream. And that you would not find out," he volunteered.

Frank stuck out his tongue.

J.Lo stuck his out right back. His tongue was long and thin and looked a little like a banana slug. Ew.

"Frank!" Mom snapped.

He jumped.

"So this was your idea. How did you think I wouldn't find out? Did you seriously think Ms. McDarrell would think that" -- she looked down at her reader – "'a shrink ray is operating much liketo a telecloner, only with the Modifiable Transistor calibrated to a _blah blah blah_ , due to improvements in the silicate gel medium used forto refract the internal Frantious Loop equation' was your work?"

Honestly, Frank hadn't had time to read it before he handed it in. He'd just added the first and last lines and hit send, because he was late for hockey practice. In hindsight, that had clearly been a bad idea. He winced.

"You're re-writing this tonight," Mom said.

"Mom! I've got practice tonight!"

Coach was going to _kill_ him.

"No, you don't. You don't have practice _any_ night until this essay is done and handed in again, and I'm going to look at it first, this time."

"But the team…"

"The team," Mom said, "is lucky I'm still letting you play after this stunt. You do it again and your father and I will pull you completely."

"But we have the game against Virginia North next week!"

"I said, if you did it again. Don't do it again, and it won't be a problem. Now re-write the essay, and do it right."

Frank sighed. "Yes, Mom."

Mom turned back to J.Lo. "And you! You have to stop letting the kids bribe you to do things like this. You need to set an example for them, not help them get into more trouble."

"Yes, Tip," J.Lo said. Frank noticed that he had his fingers crossed on the side Mom couldn't see.

Mom snapped her reader shut and stood up. "Boys." She rolled her eyes and stomped out of the room. For a moment after she left, there was silence.

"It was my best work!" J.Lo said. "There were technically drawings even!"

Frank flopped back on the floor cushion and stared at the ceiling. There was a waterspot in the corner that looked sort of like a hoverbus.

"Anyway, you are still owing me two cans of CoolGel."

Frank sat back up and glared at J.Lo, who glared right back. "One, and we never speak of this again."

"Deal."

Frank went and got his laptop.

 

>   
> Frank Gonzales  
> Ms. McDarrell's 5th period U.S. History
> 
> ##### The Boov Mounds
> 
> The Boov Mounds are hills that are left over from the Boov invasion.
> 
> We've lived near the Boov Mounds my whole life, so the field trip wasn't the first time I'd gone. I mean, I don't think there was a kid in our class who hadn't been there at least once. Not that it wasn't interesting. Just not anything new. My family used to go out there for picnics and try to guess where the different mounds came from. Once we found a diamond ring, but Mom wouldn't let us keep it. She said some tourist probably was looking for it and made us give it back to the people at the ticket booth.
> 
> We live on a Boov lake, too - I mean, we have a pier out back that goes down to it and everything. When the Boov ships first came with their guns, they took big zapping bites out of everything, and my mom says that people thought they were just vaporizing stuff, that it was gone-gone instead of just shrunk-gone.
> 
> J.Lo, that's the Boov who lives with us, says that the HighBoov didn't think humans were important enough to explain anything to, but I think maybe they were afraid to talk to us like we were people, because then what if we said "No, you can't come live here?" So they didn't tell anyone they were just shrinking stuff. Anyway, they took a zapping shrink-ray bite out of the ground near where we live, one of the big ships did. That's what the Boov lakes are, did you know that? They're like the opposite of the Boov Mounds. Big holes where the Boov shrunk stuff out and nobody ever bothered to put it back, so water filled in instead.
> 
> Anyway, so people thought that all the buildings and roads and even the people that the Boov were shrinking were dead or gone forever, and that's why they were so scared of the Boov. They thought the Boov were killing them and taking over. I wouldn't have been scared, though. I bet I would have figured it out, or I could have gotten a Boov to tell me. My Mom made friends with J.Lo, but he didn't tell her. I asked him why and he said they were a little busy, and besides, she never asked. I would have asked.
> 
> Anyway, so there was all this stuff - pieces of buildings and roads, and sometimes whole houses, and people and pets and trees and all kinds of other stuff that the Boov shrink rays had shrunk, and when the United Nations Landry Covenant was signed with the Boov in 2013, part of what the Boov agreed was that they had to give it all back.
> 
> Only they couldn't, really. Because the Gorg had blown up a lot of the Boov ships and guns that had the shrunken people and cars and trees and buildings in them, and Gorg guns aren't just shrink guns. They're the real deal. One shoots you and BOOF, you're gone, gone-gone, every atom of you and probably most of the stuff around you on all sides, too. So when the Gorg blew up all those Boov ships, everything they had shrunk was gone-gone too.
> 
> My Aunt Elise, she's not really my aunt but my Dad has known her forever, lost her grandmother and her dog because of that. And Gregory says his Dad used to have a sweet motorcycle and a sports car and a yacht but they got lost when the Boov shrank everything and then the Gorg shot the Boov. But Gregory's dad isn't that much older than my Mom, and my Mom was just a kid when the Boov came, so I think Gregory is full of it. Pardon my language.
> 
> If the Gorg hadn't come, we could have gotten it all back. Of course, if the Gorg hadn't come, the Boov would have moved in and everything would be different anyway. But the Gorg did come, and the Boov left, and before they left, they gave back all the stuff they had shrunk that the Gorg hadn't destroyed. They unshrunk it in big heaps, all over the world. Mostly they at least got the U.S. bits in the U.S. and the Chinese bits in China and so on, but not always, because

"Hey, J.Lo?"

"Yes?"

"Why didn't the Boov put everything back where they got it, instead of in big heaps? Did they forget where it came from?"

"Why are humans littering by the roads sides instead of throwing things away? Why is FrankMom's car so full of things that belong elsewheres? Why are you not putting your clothings in your room instead of leaving them all over the house? Why are you always wanting forto borrow my tools and then do not puts them back in my toolsbox? Why…"

"Okay, okay, fine. I'm sorry I asked."

"You know, I was finding the yellow squishable gaputty dispenserator in the medicine cabinet last week."

"I'm _sorry_ , jeez. I meant to put it back."

"And the synthecable bulb under the couch, with all the cables already run out of it."

"That was Luce!"

"Hmmm."

"It _was_!"

"Hmmm."

>   
> …They unshrunk it in big heaps, all over the world. Mostly they at least got the U.S. bits in the U.S. and the Chinese bits in China and so on, but not always. People found polar bears wandering around in North Dakota, and bits of the Great Wall showed up in France.
> 
> And then we, I mean the humans, had to figure out what to do with it. The people and pets and stuff, of course those were important. You still run into people whose entire memory of the Boov invasion was a big ship or a Boov with a gun and then suddenly a field somewhere in Iowa or wherever they got unshrunk. But the people kind of took care of themselves, salvaged a vehicle or whatever they could from the relarged stuff, found other people to get them up to speed, and figured it out. The things were just things. They sat there in big mounds.
> 
> The new governments issued a joint declaration making the Boov Mounds historic sites. My mom says it was mostly to prevent looting, which had become a real problem once the Boov left. And weirdly enough, it worked okay. Everyone was busy finding their lost dogs and their missing relatives, or helping to fix the roads or set up enough emergency sites with nutrishake to get everyone through the winter, or trying to travel back to where they'd come from to see what was left. Nobody had time to inventory a bunch of stuff they'd already grieved. There was work to be done.
> 
> By the time things settled in to something like normal, the mounds had started to erode and sprout grass. The government cherry-picked some stuff out and carted it to where it belonged, like the Statue of Liberty's head and the back of the Guggenheim and stuff like that. But what do you do with a scoop of interstate, when nobody knows which interstate it started out as? Or a corner of somebody's basement? Mostly people left the sites alone.
> 
> Sometimes someone would find something interesting in one, something of value that had survived the years and the weather, but mostly kids came on field trips and families came for picnics, and they just got grassier and grassier, and eroded more and more. Until they looked like they do now.
> 
> And that is what made the Boov Mounds.


End file.
